Nov. 5 - Denver Later: Thinking back, of birds seen this morning after 10:35: The route continued along one side and then the other, of the Platte River, from Sterling to La Salle. The river itself is very low - where running, I water say 6 inches deep and 20 feet wide, zigzagging over a very broad sandy bottom. This "first-bottom" is grown to cottonwoods and willows, chiefly; tracts of great extent, which must support a huge bird population in summer. Even now, in winter undetion, very many birds, small as, not identifiable, were seen from the train - besides the conspicuous kinds. I was, of course, thrilled by the great number of Magpie nests all along, as well as of the birds themselves. While the river itself now contains little water itself, I saw evidence that irrigation canals and ditches divert the water from up-stream neighbors to the farming lands in the second bottom. There were great patches of tall "weed" - seed-bearing, and from such flushed many Meadowlarks, Horned Larks, Mourning Doves, and small bird sparrow kinds. Two Wilson Snipe flushed separately from